Chapter 362

From the fact that the cola industry brought the royal family an annual net income as high as 37 million pesetas, one could see that the current Spanish royal family was really damn rich.

Being rich enough to rival a country was not an exaggeration for the Spanish royal family; although it could not compare to the income of great power countries, compared to the income of non-great power countries, it could also rank in at least the top five.

As time came to the end of 1892, Luo Lun reported to Gao Da the estimated total income of the Spanish royal family for the whole year.

The total income of all industries of the Spanish royal family reached as high as 387 million pesetas, equivalent to 15.48 million pounds.

The most profitable enterprise among them was the Spanish Royal United Bank; the annual profit of this bank had already broken through 72 million pesetas, making it the leading enterprise with the most assets and the highest income among all enterprises in Spain.

Following closely behind was the Royal Mercedes-Benz Car Company.

After more than ten years of development, the car industry had already undergone huge changes.

The most obvious was the reduction in car selling prices. In the period when cars were just born, the cost of each car was as high as 12,000 pesetas.

This also resulted in the selling price of cars having to be raised to 15,000 pesetas; after all, car factories needed a continuous stream of income to expand production scale and research new technologies and related techniques.

After experiencing these ten years of development, under the assembly line production mode, the cost of each car had already had a significant decline.

Currently, the cost of cars produced within Spain could already be controlled at about 4,200 pesetas, and the cost was already less than one-third of the original.

Benefiting from the extremely low manufacturing cost, the selling price of each car in the Spanish market had currently also been reduced to about 6,500 pesetas.

Although for most civilians it was still at a relatively high price, the current car was no longer the exclusive property of the rich; many middle-class people, after hard work, could still afford to buy a car of their own.

Of course, civilian families could also wait a bit longer.

Because the selling price of cars was currently constantly decreasing, and the per capita annual income of Spain was constantly growing. One day, civilians would also be able to afford cars, and this day was already not too far away.

As of now, the total sales volume of Mercedes-Benz cars launched by the Mercedes-Benz Car Company had already broken through 300,000 units and was moving towards the milestone of 500,000 units.

As the economies of various countries gradually prospered, the sales volume of cars was also getting higher and higher, which was also the reason why the Royal Mercedes-Benz Car Company's income was quite stable.

Just in the Spanish market, the number of cars sold each year reached several thousand. According to the current net profit of 2,300 pesetas per car, the income brought by the Spanish market to the Royal Mercedes-Benz Car Company reached nearly 10 million pesetas.

In addition to being responsible for sales in the Spanish market, the Royal Mercedes-Benz Car Company was also responsible for sales in Russia, Portugal, and some small and medium-sized European countries.

The sales volume of these countries added together also had an income of nearly 10 million pesetas each year.

Added to the sales volume of branches set up in great power countries, the total annual income of the Royal Mercedes-Benz Car Company reached as high as 65 million pesetas, and the income was still constantly growing.

Just the income of the Royal United Bank and the Royal Mercedes-Benz Car Company combined already reached as high as 137 million pesetas.

From this aspect, one could also see how profitable monopoly enterprises were; saying that money was blown in by a strong wind was absolutely not an exaggeration.

The Spanish royal family being able to be so wealthy was actually also because they achieved monopolies in many industries. However, Gao Da was not a capitalist in the true sense; while the royal family's enterprises were making money, they also fed back a portion of the benefits to the workers and the public.

The reason why Spain's per capita annual income was constantly growing was inseparable from the constant growth of the income of employees belonging to royal enterprises.

As of the beginning of this year, Spain's per capita annual income was about 248 pesetas. This income level looked relatively low, mainly because Spain's large number of farmers pulled down the income average line.

The annual income of the worker group had already exceeded 320 pesetas, and the per capita annual income of most employees of royal enterprises was as high as over 360 pesetas, which was also the reason why most Spanish people were willing to join enterprises belonging to the royal family.

This was just those ordinary workers. For those excellent technical workers, they could get an annual income of several hundred or even over a thousand pesetas in any factory.

Some excellent technical workers of the Royal Mercedes-Benz Car Company had an average income as high as 860 pesetas, which was several times Spain's current per capita income.

From this aspect, one could also see one thing: the per capita annual income calculated by the Spanish government was not exact and might be on the low side compared to the actual level.

Facts were indeed so. Spain possessed a farmer group of tens of millions, and the income of these farmer groups was difficult to estimate.

Their income was not only related to the grain production of that year, but also linked to the grain price of that year. The sale of grain also depended on the willingness of these farmers, and it was precisely these farmer groups that could not be counted that kept the per capita annual income calculated by the Spanish government at a relatively low level.

If only the worker group was counted, Spain's per capita annual income could grow to over 350 pesetas, and only more, not less.

Although the per capita annual income calculated by the government was not accurate, it was still no problem to determine the population that needed poverty subsidies based on the current per capita annual income.

Just by issuing subsidies to the impoverished population, the royal family had to spend tens of millions of pesetas in funds each year. Gao Da also had the Royal Security Intelligence Agency supervise the destination of the subsidies to ensure that this money really and truly reached the hands of the people who needed them.

Benefiting from the royal family's subsidies to the impoverished population, added to the prosperity of Spain's domestic economy, the living standard of Spanish people was becoming better and better; being full and warm was no longer a fantasy, but a fact that most civilian families could achieve.

Some families had even gotten rid of the demand for material aspects; compared to material, they cared more about spiritual enjoyment.

To put it simply, the pursuit of these people had changed from simple eating, drinking, and excreting to playing and enjoying, which included tourism and watching bullfighting competitions.

Ma Deli and Barcelona welcomed a large number of tourists every year; these two thriving twin cities were the places that most Spanish people dreamed of going to.

Besides these two large-scale metropolises, the most popular places for Spanish people were cities and scenic spots with different scenery.

Spain still had many coastlines with beautiful scenery; these coastlines were highly sought after by Spanish people, and a large number of tourists went there every summer.

Benefiting from the vigorous construction of the transport department, the transport environment within Spain was much better than before.

Railways connected not only the capitals of each state, but those cities with a certain scale were all covered by railway lines.

Besides railways, Spain's highways were also built to all cities. Under such perfect transport construction, the population flow of Spanish people also reached an unprecedented climax.

Of course, the benefits of population flow could only be enjoyed by Ma Deli and Barcelona.

If it weren't for the cabinet deciding to limit Ma Deli's population after discussion, I'm afraid Ma Deli's population would already be heading towards 1.5 million at this time.

Even after population restrictions, Ma Deli's population currently still reached as high as 1.2 million, making it the undisputed first city of Spain. Barcelona also engaged in crazy catching up in these few years and had currently become the second city in Spain with a population of over one million.

Compared to Ma Deli, which had population restrictions, Barcelona's population development was not restricted.

This also made the development plan of the Barcelona municipal government very huge; they planned to catch up with Ma Deli within the next five years and become Spain's industrial center, economic center, and shipping center.

According to Barcelona's current population growth trend, don't talk about five years; even within three years, Barcelona's population had hope of exceeding Ma Deli's.

Of course, no matter how Barcelona developed, it could not replace the importance of Ma Deli as the capital.

Ma Deli was located in the central area of the entire Iberian Peninsula; no matter whether Spain annexed Portugal in the future, Ma Deli was the most important city on the Iberian Peninsula in terms of strategic significance.

Even if Barcelona's industry and economy were highly developed, it could only rank as the second most important city under Ma Deli.

However, there was no need for Barcelona and Ma Deli to compete. Both were special cities of Spain, and there was no conflict in development, and they could even work hand in hand.

Under these two cities, the third most populous city in Spain was Seville, the capital of the Andalusia state.

Although the population of Andalusia state was the largest among all state-level administrative divisions in Spain, Seville, as the capital city, only possessed a population of just over 400,000.

But fortunately, the population scale of other cities in Spain was also very limited; although there was no hope of catching up with Ma Deli and Barcelona, maintaining its status as the third oldest was still no problem.

When trams were just born, the Spanish government planned to open trams in some cities with a larger scale.

But after conducting pilot projects in Ma Deli and Barcelona, the cabinet government quickly dismissed this idea.

For this kind of public transport with public welfare nature, wanting to achieve profitability was quite difficult.

The current Ma Deli and Barcelona were both super-large cities with a population of one million level; the trams in these two cities could not achieve profitability, let alone other cities.

And precisely because of this, currently the only ones in the entire Spain that could open trams were Ma Deli and Barcelona.

Seville might be the third, but at least in the short term, Seville had no hope of opening trams.

As time came to the end of 1892, according to the report data of the Spanish government, the total population of Spain's mainland reached a scale of 28.6 million.

In the past ten years, Spain's annual population growth was quite stable, and the total scale of population growth in ten years exceeded 8 million people.

According to such population growth speed, it was expected that in 1895, Spain's total population scale could reach over 30 million people.

30 million people was not small in the entire Europe; as long as the population could reach 30 million, in the future, whether participating in wars or self-development, compared to other European great powers, there would not be too much disadvantage.

If the Spanish-descended immigrants living in the colonies were counted, Spain's total population would exceed 29 million people.

However, the government would ignore these colonial immigrants in the statistics and only count the population data of the mainland, which could also reduce the pressure brought by statistics.

As of now, the population statistics of various countries could only be accurate to ten thousand people. As for smaller numbers, they could not be accurately counted.

This also resulted in population statistics having relatively large errors, and there was no relatively accurate number at all.

But fortunately, Spain's population statistics were still relatively accurate; generally, the population error would not exceed ten thousand people, mainly due to the influence brought by those dead populations and immigrant populations.

1892 was an extremely important year for Spain.

This year, the population not only welcomed a significant growth, but the industry also had relatively rapid development.

Around 1890, Spain's annual steel production was only 521,000 tons; this data was already quite good at that time.

According to the steel production data announced by various governments at that time, Spain's steel production could rank fifth in the world, second only to the four countries of the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, and France, and was at the same level as the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

And two years later, in the full year of 1892, Spain's steel production had already reached 721,300 tons.

Although this steel production was still ranked fifth in the world, it had already widened the gap with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and was not far from France's steel production.

Currently, Spain's total industrial scale was also about in the range of fifth in the world, slightly leading the Austro-Hungarian Empire and slightly lagging behind France.

This was also the development achievement of Spain for more than twenty years. The warship building plan also effectively promoted the growth of steel production; after all, the steel armor paved on battleships was all genuine steel casting.

One battleship reached as high as tens of thousands of tons; in short, it was tens of thousands of tons of steel.

Just these few battleships built by the naval shipyard allowed Spain's steel production to have a not-small growth.

Let alone the influence brought by other industries; this was also the reason why Spain's economy was not affected while the industry grew rapidly.

The growth of Spain's steel production was carried out according to domestic demand, not blind growth.

Although this way of producing according to demand slowed down the rapid growth of steel production, it also made Spain's economy very solid.

Even if another economic crisis came, the impact on Spain would not be too great.

After all, Spain's industrial construction was all steady and solid, and the stock market would review enterprises applying for listing, not allowing those shell companies to be listed so easily.

What were popular in Spain's stock market were real industrial enterprises with assets, or financial enterprises with official nature.

This kind of enterprise had stronger ability to withstand the blow of economic crisis and was also less likely to go bankrupt in an economic crisis.

Added to the help of the Spanish government, it could be said that the current Spain was not afraid of economic crisis, and economic crisis could not erupt within Spain.

That kind of economic crisis that spread to Spain from other countries was just a simple test for various enterprises in Spain.

(End of chapter)